


Cat Software on Dog Hardware

by KingOfClubs



Series: Voltron Rewrites [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Animal Traits, Furry, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, but thats not like a big thing, feel the need to specify that here, i guess, sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27945437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingOfClubs/pseuds/KingOfClubs
Summary: When someone is born, they have some kind of animal trait. The claws, tail, ears, sometimes even the markings. And they could transform into that animal once they turned fourteen years old. It was always such an essential thing in a child’s life. Learning from their parents how to harness the ability, transforming in animal and human form back and forth.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron)
Series: Voltron Rewrites [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025310
Kudos: 18





	Cat Software on Dog Hardware

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of my voltron fics that i am rewriting!

When someone is born, they have some kind of animal trait. The claws, tail, ears, sometimes even the markings. And they could transform into that animal once they turned fourteen years old. It was always such an essential thing in a child’s life. Learning from their parents how to harness the ability, transforming in animal and human form back and forth.

Often a person’s whole life was based on their animal traits. What jobs they had. Their friends. Even where they were allowed to be, depending on the country. Some places discriminated against different characteristics. Which was to be expected with human’s horrible history of treating people who are different than themselves.

And on a lesser degree, people were often judged based on their animals; wolves are expected to pack creators and hate being alone. They fight for dominance quite often. Goats are short-tempered; they butt into things when it’s not their turn. Bears are scary, easily angered, lazy, but caring only to those close to them. Lynxes are playful creatures. Foxes are by far characterized as one of the worst; they’re lousy, loud, annoying, sly, untrustworthy, sketchy, and most are common criminals. Most animals had negative connotations coming along with being it. The fox had some of the strongest and the most enforced. All because people give in to the stereotypes.

Shiro was a Gray Wolf, Keith a Mountain Goat, Hunk a Brown Bear, and Pidge, a Eurasian Lynx. Not all stereotypes are correct, especially when it came to Hunk. Lance often thought about the stereotypes that surrounded his team back when they were on Earth a lot. It was just something that was on his mind often. He remembered when kids would run away in fear from Hunk when they realized that he was a bear. But everyone who actually knew Hunk knew that he was a sweetheart who could never hurt anybody.

Everyone was so open about their traits and how it had affected them throughout their lives— everyone except for Lance. No one on the team knew about Lance’s animal other than he’s some kind of feline or canine, which didn’t shorten the options down much. He has the ears and the claws, yet he hid his tail. He didn’t want anyone to know what he was because of the preconceived notions that he would get… Lance is a Red Fox. Only Hunk knew this. And frankly, Lance wanted to keep it that way, granted his experiences in his past, being ridiculed for who he was.

Growing up as a Red Fox was a struggle. He and other foxes, bats, chimpanzees, boars, and many other traits were excluded by the other children. Out of fear, for the most part, but some were from pure discrimination and prejudice. Lance never had it the worst; he knew that and recognized that. He knew many kids that would get so much worse than he did base on their traits. But it didn’t change how Lance was treated and how he felt about said treatment. Didn’t help Lance was avoided for other reasons than just his traits. Having ADHD was one of them.

But when he moved to America, he decided to hide what he was, who he was. He would edit pictures of his family to take away their tails to show other people. To everyone, the entire Inclán family hid their traits. It wasn’t as weird to hide your traits in America as it was in Cuba, so that was a plus for Lance.

The Garrison knew, of course, because they had every one listed for their animal traits, as it was on almost every single documentation. But thankfully, Iverson never outed Lance for what he was. Maybe he just respected Lance’s privacy; that would be the one thing that he respected. Some people liked to hide their animal traits. It was nothing new.

Lance was sitting in his room, with his tail out. The large, grossly matted thing wagging slowly from boredom. It was all matted from being stuck in his pants all day. But he didn’t care. After doing this for several years, he was used to it. And didn’t brush it because he knew it would get all matted and horrible again.

He had thought many times about just going ahead and shaving all the hair off. Hoping it would grow back thinner and weaker hairs and be able to pass as another animal’s tail. But that would never work. His ears already gave off a lot, so he never thought it was worth the effort. But at the same time… he hadn’t been found out so far, so maybe the ears weren’t as big of a deal as he thought.

Lance sighed and looked at the ground. He was really overthinking things. That’s all he really seemed to do. Just overthink things and make it way more complicated than it should be. He couldn’t make a decision without going through every possible outcome. Which was really what you wanted to do, but it felt wrong when he did it.

“Hey, you in there?” Hunk knocked on the door. 

The tail instantly fell. “Yeah, Hunk, I’m in here. You can come in, big guy.”

“The team’s doing a grooming session. I know your tail is matted from being trapped in your pants all day, so I came in—”

Lance immediately frowned, looking at the bigger teen with a disappointed look. “Hunk you know how I feel about—”

“Yes, I know how you feel, which is why, Lance, I’m asking if you want me to groom it.”

“It’s just going to get matted again. What’s the point, Hunk.”

Hunk frowned, walking in the room. “Taking proper care of yourself and your tail is important. I would think you of all people would get that, Lance. You’re so confident about how you look, so—”

“I mean how could I not be? Look at me?” he put his hand to his chi, smirked and winked.

“Ah of course, the amazing and handsome Lance, how could I forget,” Hunk chuckled. “But seriously, taking proper care of your tail is really important. Being up in space doesn't change that.”

“So you’ll groom it like old times? And I don’t have to… go out to everyone else?”

“No you don’t have to. I know you aren’t going to go out to the team and let them do it, I… I know this. I wish you would, I really don’t get what your problem is, they don’t care that I’m a bear, so you would assume that they won’t care that you’re a fox,” he sighed. “You aren’t going to go to the team grooming session, I know this, so I thought I could do it with you instead.”

The other keeps his eyes on the ground. “I-I know. I just, I can’t muster the courage to do it,” his ears folded backward, expressing his sadness. “I want to, I just, can’t. Every time I try, my tail goes in between my legs and then I just leave to hide it away again. I used to be bullied. But I also made so many kids uncomfortable by just existing. I don’t.. I don’t want them to think differently of me you know? So whenever I try and show them the real me, my tail goes right back where it thinks it belongs… Where I’ve made it belong.”

“Lance, I’m not going to force you, but you need to do it one way or another. If they find out on their own, you know how upset they’ll be. They almost found out when Sendak attacked, but I was there to stop them,” Hunk walked over and sat by the other, giving Lance his hand.

“Why do you think they’ll be upset? I thought you said that you think everyone will be okay with me…”

Hunk got to work on the tip of the tail. “No, I just mean they’ll be upset that you didn’t come to them about it. That you didn’t trust them with that information.”

He smiled, ears perked straight up. “You have very nice hands, Hunk, they run through my tail nicely… But I mean… I guess you’re right. Maybe I should go out there and talk to them.”

Hunk smiled. “Really?” he stopped brushing. “Well, make up your mind, what do you want to do, Foxy?”

Lance’s face turned red. “Oh my god. Uh. I guess I can— I mean, I just,” he took a deep breath. “So, can I just walk in there with my tail out and not say anything?”

“Yes. That’s okay. Or we can stay here and I get back to grooming your tail. Whatever you want.”

Lance’s ears fall back to the sadden position. “What, what if they don’t like me? You know how foxes are treated back on Earth. I just… I don’t want to give them more of a reason to hate me than they already have.”

“Lance, first off they have no reason to hate you and…” Hunk sighed. “Well, there’s no way we’ll know unless we go out there? Huh? But again. It’s all up to you.”

“Yeah. And you’re right, my tail is a mess,” the Cuban held the matted fur-tail. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

Hunk smiled, the two started to walk into the lounge. Lance, It suddenly popped out, and he started laughing. Hunk glances over to find Shiro trying to help Keith get his horns unstuck from the couch.

“What you’d do, Mullet?”

“Oh shut up. I was laying down, about to stand up and then they got stuck!”

Allura’s eyes widened when she saw the state of Lance’s tail. “Lance! Your tail is all, what’s the word?”

“Matted?”

“Yes, let me groom it,” Allura ushered Lance to sit down. He does; he flicks the tail before allowing Allura to grab it. She started to run a brush through the horribly matted tail.

Pidge looked up. “I knew it! You’re a fox. It was the ears. Cool dude. My best friend in elementary school was a fox,” Pidge commented.

“Cool cool, Lance is a fox, so what. Help me get my horns out Pidge,” Keith said, angered, twisting his head, finally popping out his horn. “Coran, you need to horn-proof this place.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Lance smiled weakly, his ears falling to the side of his head. He didn’t expect everyone to be so… nonchalant about it. He really didn’t know what he expected, but this for sure wasn’t it.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Pidge looked up.

“Nothing.”

She sighed. “Then what’s up with your ears? The ears are how we express our emotions and you, right now Lance, look to be pretty sad.”

He covered his ears with his hands. “Nothing? It’s just, uh, Allura’s being a little rough with my tail. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just, I dunno,” he muttered.

“That wouldn’t cause you to be sad, but, just, Allura let me do it,” Pidge stood up, taking the fox’s tail into her hands, using her unsheathed claws to brush through it. She started laughing once Lance lets out a purring sound. “I thought foxes were canines!” she struggled to say through her laughter.

“I am a canine! We just… purr…”

Hunk smiled. “Foxes are cat software on dog hardware.”

Lance smiled. These people care about  _ him, _ not what he is. He is so grateful for that. He was saddened he had hidden himself for so long. Hiding in fear of what they would say, but that was in the past now. And they knew what he was now, and they accepted him. So it was all good from here on out.

  
  
  



End file.
